Scientists have proved the presence of volcanic activity on Venus

Venusian volcanoes in the artist's view

The spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA) Venus Express (Venus Express, VEX) found one of the most convincing evidence to date of the presence of volcanic activity on Venus. Using a spacecraft camera shooting in the near-infrared part of the spectrum, an international team of scientists noticed local changes in the brightness of some parts of the surface on photos that were made only a few days apart.

While the attention of people is focused on Mars and distant planets ( missions to Pluto, for example ), very little news comes from our closest neighbor, Venus . This planet is almost exactly the same size as the Earth, and it also has an internal heat source that heats it up strongly. Presumably, such a source are radioactive decay processes. And this energy must somehow go outside.

One of the oldest assumptions is that it is released due to volcanic eruptions on the planet. But the extremely dense atmosphere of Venus does not allow us to consider anything in detail on its surface. Early studies using radar showed that it has both volcanoes and frozen lava flows.
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In 2010, a study was published telling that infrared radiation emanating from three volcanic regions differed from the radiation of the surrounding area. This information was interpreted as confirmation of the presence of relatively young lava flows (up to 2.5 Ma), but the presence of current volcanic activity was not confirmed by this.

In 2012, another study noted a sharp jump in the concentration of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere - its content increased in 2006–2007, and then began to decrease. This could be explained by a change in the direction of the winds, but most likely this indicated a strong volcanic activity.

Now, a group of scientists was able to see in the "window" opened in the dense atmosphere of Venus, transparent for radiation in the near-infrared part of the spectrum, dramatic changes on the surface of the planet.


Iconography on the theme (clickable)

“We observed several times how a certain place on the surface of the planet suddenly becomes very hot, and then cools down again,” says Yevgeny Shalygin from the German Solar System Research Institute. Max Planck. “These“ hot spots ”are in places of tectonic activity known to us from data obtained from radars. But for the first time we noticed such sharp changes in temperature. ”

These places are located in the Ganiki canyon near the volcanoes Ozza Mons and Maat Mons. In these places there are faults of the planetary crust, through which just the magma must penetrate to the surface. The observed hot spots were quite small, about a square kilometer. Their temperature at 830 ° C significantly exceeded the average ambient temperature of 480 ° C.


Canyon

The canyon of Ganiki and before that was considered the area with the highest geological activity on the planet. In the words of one of the scientists working on the project, Venus can be officially invited to a small club of the volcanically active planets of the solar system.